If web domains were countries…

Mapping the Online World — an atlas redrawn according to the number of registrations within each country’s internet domain* — whether .uk for the UK, .de for Germany, .cn for China, and so on.

On a map of the world scaled to the most popular top-level domains, the Pacific island of Tokelau reigns supreme.

Wired: With more than 31 million .tk websites, the tiny New Zealand territory has more domain registrations than any other nation or territory in the world. It might measure just four square miles and have little over 1,400 residents, but Tokelau’s .tk dwarfs the rest of the world.

Domain map of the world

‘Online Europe’ is so much larger than geographic Europe because of the high rates of internet adoption by countries in this region. The UK, for example, is only the 21st largest country in the world by population, and the 78th by area. But in terms of internet use, it’s right at the top of the table.

Domain map of Europe

The USA, on the other hand, is an anomaly. Despite having high levels of internet use, e-commerce and online innovation, there are comparatively few registrations under .us, its official country-code domain. Americans and American businesses tend to prefer .com, which at around 123 million registrations is the world’s most common domain.

See also

• Ye olde submarine cable map — TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map; the physical internet.
• Tor Flow: Mapping the Tor network — a visualization of the vast amounts of traffic streaming between its many nodes, delineating a map of the internet as it can’t otherwise be seen.